Dreams of Rapture
by TheLoneHunter
Summary: A Bioshock novelization from Jack's point of view. Rated M for harsh language and violence.
1. You're Special

**Chapter One:**

**You're Special**

"They told me, 'Son, you're special. You were born to do great things.'

You know what? They were right." -Jack

**1960, Mid-Atlantic**

I took a puff on my cigarette, watching the hypnotic trail of the tobacco smoke as it drifted up towards the ceiling from the lit end of the Camel. Exhaling, I fingered the cigarette, transferring the paper-wrapped stick of tobacco to my left hand as I picked up a brown leather wallet from the floor with my right. As I flipped it open, the faces of my parents stood out from a yellowed, black and white photograph in the sleeve of the wallet. The picture had been taken when I was younger, when I lived on the farm with Mom and Pop.

I didn't remember much about my parents, except that Pop and I weren't very close to each other. We'd never bonded in the way that a father and son were supposed to. Hell, I didn't even know if he actually cared about me. What a great dad.

Mom wasn't around much either. Said she didn't agree with Pop on some of his political beliefs. Pop was always talking about "escaping the common world", living in a place where we wouldn't be restrained by anyone or anything. Mom thought he was crazy.

I guess he was, in a way.

I set the wallet down on the floor of the plane, closing the two halves of leather. Next to my seat was a box, wrapped in blue gift paper with a red bow attached to it. I picked it up and looked at it, reading the note tucked under the ribbon.

_To Jack, with love from Mom and Dad,_ the letter began. _Would you kindly…_

The_ Fasten Seat Belt_ light flickered on suddenly as the plane shuddered. _What's going on?_ I wondered. _More turbulence?_ Several passengers looked uneasy, glancing out the windows to see what was wrong. Without warning, the whole airplane tipped forward into a nosedive, the noise from the engines growing louder. In a panic, I gripped the edge of my seat for dear life, holding on as the screams from the passengers reached my ears.

A massive splash, then darkness.

When I came to, I was surrounded by water. The suffocating weight of the ocean pushed down on me. I couldn't breathe. Pain filled my lungs. Desperately, I reached out, swimming towards the surface of the ocean, about twenty feet over my head. Through the greenish water, I saw a handbag, containing a photograph and a pearl necklace. It floated down into the depths, trailing white pearls from its broken string.

I looked up, my lungs screaming for air. On the surface of the ocean, I could see flames coming from the wreckage of what had once been my airplane. The whole thing had crashed into the sea. One of the propellers of the plane sliced through the water not three yards away, still whirling like a child's spinning top. Part of the plane's fuselage broke off and sank past me as I thrashed to the surface, blackness threatening to enclose my senses.

I broke the surface of the water with a gasp, unable to move, I was so weak. Fire surrounded me as burning airplane fuel gushed into the ocean, enclosing the patch of ocean I was swimming through in a ring of flame. Up ahead, a stone tower with a bright light on its top rose out of the water, seemingly placed right in the middle of the ocean. Curiosity taking hold of my mind, I began to swim toward the structure. Sparks drifted down from the sky, hissing as they hit the water and were extinguished.

Paddling my way through the burning water, I came across the tail of the plane. Its light still blinked red, bathing the ocean in a crimson glow. With a rumbling noise, the tail sank into the depths, bubbles rising out of the water from the air inside. I swam my way to the tower, away from the plane wreck and the burning sea. A small dock, lit by flickering lamps, lay at the base of the tower, followed by a flight of concrete steps.

I pulled myself out of the cold water, gasping for breath, and retched onto the concrete. Water poured out of my mouth and dripped from my soaking clothes and hair, splashing onto the stone stairway. Unable to believe my luck at being alive, I took a few deep breaths and walked up the stairway. The stones were wet, and it was difficult to keep my balance as I took step after weary step, finally reaching an ornately carved door in the side of the stone tower.

I pushed the door open and staggered inside into darkness. Only a ray of light from the moon outside shone through the doorway, illuminating a patch of ground near my feet. The door swung shut behind me with a clang. I jumped and whirled around at the noise, but the tower had seemingly locked me inside. Behind me, lights flickered on, revealing a massive golden statue of a man gazing down at me, above a red banner that read, "No Gods or Kings. Only Man."

_What the hell is this place?_ I asked myself, staring at the stern expression on the statue's face. There was another doorway ahead, so I walked towards it and stepped through, walking down another staircase and into a large room with a strange bronze-colored machine in the center. It looked like a submersible. Haunting violin music from the 60s played out through the room. I think it was _La Mer_, by Trenet. I'd heard it before on Pop's radio when I was a boy.

The door of the craft was open, as if it was expecting me. With no thought for safety, I stepped inside the machine. A lever reading "Bathysphere Control" was placed in the center. I pulled it back. There was a hissing noise as the door of the bathysphere sealed shut, and immediately, the bronze bubble began to descend into the depths of the sea.

Bubbles shot past the window as the cabin pressurized itself. A lamp on the side of the sub flashed on, shedding light on a sign that read "10 Fathoms". A carved statue held up the sign as it rose past me, but the machine was descending too fast for me to be able to take in the details. Another sign rose up in front of the window. It was 18 fathoms, from what I could see. Now if I only knew how deep a fathom was…


	2. Rapture

**Chapter Two:**

**Rapture**

"Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose…Rapture!" -Andrew Ryan

**Underneath the Atlantic Ocean**

As the _18 Fathoms_ sign receded from view, a projector screen rose up in front of my face, blocking my view of the ocean outside. From somewhere in the back of the submersible, a projector began to roll, sending a picture of a tower in the middle of water onto the screen. It took me a few seconds to realize that this was the tower that my plane had crashed into, where I had entered and was now descending from. _Might as well enjoy the show,_ I thought to myself.

A black and white slide, an advertisement for something called "INCINERATE" appeared on the screen. "Fire at your Fingertips!" the heading read. "Plasmids by Ryan Industries". A handsome man was depicted in the ad, producing a flame from his finger and lighting the cigarette of a beautiful woman, who was smiling at him. A sudden craving for a cigarette lanced through my brain, but then I remembered that the one I had smoked on the plane was the last in my pack.

Another picture appeared, a portrait of a man sitting at a desk, wearing a suit and sporting a cheerful but firm attitude in his expression. "From the desk of RYAN," proclaimed the words to the right of the desk. A man's voice began to play through an unknown speaker system inside the bathysphere.

"I am Andrew Ryan," the voice said, "and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" A drawn image of a hardworking farmer appeared on the screen, wiping perspiration from his face. A barn and windmill stood behind him, among a vast field. It looked a lot like the farm I grew up on.

"No', says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor." Ryan's voice continued, as a slide of a menacing eagle played out on the screen, talons open and beak ready to attack the same poor farmer, who cowered in the corner of the picture. Behind the eagle was the White House, and an American flag.

"No', says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God." said Ryan. A new image, one depicting a giant hand reaching out of the heavens toward the farmer, appeared on the projection.

"No', says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone!" the voice said with a note of finality. A third slide shone onto the screen. From the cloud-filled sky over the Kremlin, a hammer and sickle stood ready to smash and stab the minute figure of the farmer on the ground.

"I rejected those answers," said Ryan's voice furiously. "Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose…Rapture!" The screen retracted into the floor suddenly, and my jaw dropped with shock at what I saw beyond the glass.

Through the window, a massive underwater city lay sprawled across the ocean floor, with fish swimming between the tall buildings and glass tubes connecting everything. A monstrous squid swam past the sub, tentacles trailing, and I could only gape in wonder at this impossible spectacle of engineering. Whoever this Ryan was, he was a genius, to be sure.

"A city," the voice of Andrew Ryan broke into my thoughts, "where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."

The bathysphere was moving through the city, passing between the mighty buildings with ease. A monstrous noise rang out through the water, and slowly, a giant whale appeared from behind two "skyscrapers". An actual whale was swimming through the city! It was magnificent, no question. But even as awe-inspiring as Rapture was, I still wondered how on earth something this big could be kept so secret from the outside world. How could the US, England, or even the Russians not know about this?

The whale passed under the submersible as voices began to play out of a small radio on the left side of the machine's door. A man with an Irish accent was talking.

"…all lit up like hellfire. Looks like some kind of plane crash."

"We're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," another man, an American, was responding. "How could it?"

"I don't know. You'd best get over there, and be quick about it. The Splicers are comin'," said the Irishman.

"You gotta be kidding me! How did they know we were coming?"

"The bathysphere's on its way down. That means we've got company."

The sub pulled through a series of metal rings with neon lights on them, which read, "ALL GOOD THINGS OF THIS EARTH FLOW INTO THE CITY". It came to rest inside a cylindrical station after passing through the last ring. I felt the sphere begin to rise up as the water drained off of its metal plating.

"Just one more minute!" the American called through the radio. "The sphere…the sphere's coming up now!"

"Charlie, security's crying wolf all over, get a move on!" the Irishman responded, panic edging his voice.

Outside, all I could see was darkness, broken only by the dim flickering of an overhead lamp. A silhouette was visible against the glass window on the back wall of the room. It was human, slowly backing towards the sub, arms held out in front of it, as if to ward something off. Something was moving towards him from out of the gloom.

"Just don't hurt me! Just let me go!" he pleaded to his unseen assailant. _This must be Charlie_, I thought. His voice was the same as it had been over the radio. The light shone out on Charlie, revealing a woman advancing on him, sharp metal blades grasped in her hands. She had murder in her eyes, and looked at Charlie like a hawk watching its prey.

Without warning, the woman lunged forward, slashing across Charlie's stomach. The wounded man choked and gagged, crying for her to stop as more blood gushed out. The woman pinned Charlie against the bathysphere's door and drove a blade into his body, splattering viscera onto the glass. A final slash of the weapons finished off Charlie, sending him dying to the ground in a spray of gore.

Panting like a dog, the murderous woman looked up from her unfortunate victim, staring through the sub window right at me.

"_Is it someone new?"_ she asked in a hoarse voice that made my blood run cold.


	3. Sunken City

**Chapter 3:**

**Sunken City**

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more…"

-Lord Byron

**The city of Rapture, underneath the Atlantic**

The crazed woman screamed in fury, a bloodcurdling shriek that chilled me to the bones. I backed up in terror, pressing myself against the wall of the bathysphere. With one bound, she sprang on top of my vessel, her feet clanging against the brass plating. A sudden noise of metal clashing on metal reached my ears. The woman was trying to slice through the wall of the sub with her handheld blades!

Panicking, I could only glance up as gashes began to appear in the ceiling, sparks raining from the deep cuts as my assailant growled and slashed unsuccessfully. The sphere rocked and swayed from the blows, threatening to knock me to the floor. Just when I thought I could take no more, the woman leapt off the bathysphere, landing back in front of the glass viewing window.

Suddenly, the Irishman's voice sounded through the sub's radio.

"_Would you kindly pick up that short-wave radio?"_ he asked. There was something familiar about his words…but I couldn't tell what it was. Obediently, I reached out and grabbed the receiver, bringing it up to my ear.

"_I don't know how you survived that plane crash,"_ the Irishman said, _"but I'm never one to question Providence. I'm Atlas, and I aim to keep you alive."_

"_Now keep on movin',"_ ordered the man. _"We'll have to get you to higher ground."_ The door of the bathysphere swung open with a creak of metal, revealing Rapture's interior. I hesitated, uneasy at having just seen a man killed before my very eyes. As if reading my mind, Atlas continued, _"Take a deep breath and step out of the bathysphere. I won't leave you twistin' in the wind."_

_This is it, Jack. Don't lose your nerve._ I thought to myself I slowly moved out of the vessel, feeling the sensation of being on dry land again. _That's ironic. This whole fucking city is underwater._ Before I had taken a few steps, Atlas spoke again.

"_We're gonna need to draw her out of hidin', but you're gonna have to trust me."_

_I don't even know this guy. It could be a trap,_ a little voice in the back of my head said. I ignored it. After all, the only other option was to stay, and get killed by the woman or some other murderous person.

A crunch of wood under my foot caused me to glance down at a broken sign, on which was written, "RAPTURE'S DEAD". More signs were strewn around, some leaning against the wall, some on the red carpet. Protestors?

Like a malevolent echo from another world, the woman's voice resounded through the room, sending goosebumps up my back.

"_He's hiding…"_ she hissed, almost as if she was playing cat and mouse. _"I'll wrap you in a sheet…"_

Terrified, I raced up a flight of stairs, glancing left and right as I tried to get a glimpse of my tormentor. A lightbulb fizzled and burst next to me, sending a cascade of sparks onto the cement floor.

"_Just a bit more!"_ Atlas yelled encouragingly. Suddenly, something dropped from the ceiling, landing on the floor not three yards in front of me. The murderous woman stared at me with wrath in her eyes, raising her sickle-like weapons. As if out of nowhere, a spotlight blasted on, bathing the woman in bright beams of light.

"_How d'you like that, sister!" _Atlas shouted as a strange helicopter-like mechanical contraption flew into the spotlight, pursuing the woman and firing a mounted machine gun at her as she fled. Free of attackers, I climbed into the next room as Atlas turned his attention to me.

"_Would you kindly find a crowbar or something?"_ he asked. _"Bloody Splicers nailed Charlie before he…God damn Splicers!"_ Anger filled Atlas' voice as I searched the room for a crowbar, a metal pipe, anything to protect myself from these…Splicers, I guess they were called. A heavy wrench lay on the ground near some loose pieces of wall. I picked it up, feeling its weight. This would make a fine weapon. So why not give it a try?

I swung the wrench at the plaster with my right hand, watching the weakened material shatter under the momentum of the heavy tool. A few more whacks with the wrench, and I was through. Through the white dust, I could see a wide stairway leading up to another room. Something was on fire at the top of the stairs; a piece of furniture. I began climbing the steps, wrench in hand.

Without warning, the burning wooden cabinet flew out of the doorway, tumbling end over end towards me. Startled, I leapt to the side as the flaming cabinet rolled past, the flames almost singing my shirt. If I had been a second too slow, I would have been crushed by the burning wood. As I dashed into the room, I was greeted by a hideous laugh as a monstrously disfigured man advanced towards me, brandishing a heavy pipe in his hand.

"Yeah! Report me, you fuck…" he started to yell, before a swing from my wrench shattered his jawbone, sending him to the floor writhing in pain. Panicking, I brought the wrench down on his head again and again until the man lay dead, his skull and brain crushed and gushing blood onto the floor. Gingerly, I turned the corpse over with my free hand to examine my attacker. What remained of his face was white, thin, and gaunt, with sunken eyes and pasty skin from lack of sunlight. A quick search of his pockets yielded a first aid kit and a syringe filled with some strange glutinous substance. It was labeled EVE.

A girl's voice started to play through the room's speaker system as I looked around. There was a curving stairwell leading into a store in the left side of the room.

"_My daddy's smarter than Einstein, stronger than Hercules, and able to light fire with a snap of his finger!"_ the voice squealed. _"Are you as good as my daddy, mister? Not if you don't visit the Gatherer's Garden, you aren't!_

_What is this place?_ I wondered, ascending the stairs as the advertisement played out. A single neon sign above the store's entrance read "OPEN", with a second sign, "PLASMIDS", underneath a garish cartoon of a man flexing his powerful arm. _What are plasmids?_

I walked through the open door of the Gatherer's Garden, into a small room with a purplish fog hanging over the floor. A single broken vending machine filled with syringes of red liquid sat against the opposite wall. Without a single thought for my own safety, I walked over to the vendor and grabbed a syringe. I held out my left wrist, which bore a tattoo of three chain links on it. I'd never known where I had gotten the tattoo, but I remember having it when I was a kid, living on the farm. I thought it was normal for people to have them at a young age.

Putting these thoughts out of my head, I plunged the needle into my arm, and the world turned upside down.


	4. Daddies and Sisters

**Author's Note:** Sorry about the massive wait, as there were unforeseen complications. Now would you kindly read Chapter 4?

-TLH

* * *

**Chapter 4:**

**Daddies and Sisters**

"It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world."

-Dorothea Dix

**Rapture, Gatherer's Garden**

As the needle of this 'plasmid vial' entered my wrist, I felt a sudden shock rip through my nerves, like I had just injected myself with liquid lightning. Adding to this notion, a wave of strange bluish energy rippled out of the point where the needle had been stuck, coursing along my arms and tracing a glowing pattern through my veins. I reeled backwards in terror and confusion, staggering unconsciously toward the banister railing of the balcony, Atlas's voice ringing in my ears.

"_Steady now! Your genetic code is being rearranged. Just hold on, and everything will be fine."_

Fine? Fine? Here I was, in some nightmarish underwater city filled with insane blade-wielding people, with some unknown drug working its way through…

My hands…they were glowing. Bolts of electricity sparked and crackled between my palms, illuminated in an ethereal blue. Lightning at my fingertips. I felt a sudden rush of power through my brain, which was quickly thrown aside when the floor suddenly fell away from under my feet.

No. Not that.

I had fallen over the balcony railing.

What a fucking idiot I was, shooting that load of unholy crap into my veins. What was I thinking? I didn't even know if I could trust this Atlas person.

I struck the marble floor hard and lost consciousness immediately. Maybe a minute passed by, maybe a decade. It wouldn't have made a difference. All I remember is that I was awakened by the sound of someone's footsteps coming closer and closer. When I finally opened my eyes, one of those damn Splicers was crouched beside me, holding some kind of pipe or staff in his hand. Another one stood behind him, also staring at me.

"This little fish looks like he's had his cherry popped!" remarked the crouched one. "Wonder if he's still got some Adam?"

I couldn't move. Couldn't talk, couldn't defend myself. What was Adam?

My mind went blank once more.

They were still there when I opened my eyes. Now I could see one of the Splicer's faces clearly, or rather, the mask that covered what was left of his face. Hideous. His jaw was bent at an unnatural angle, and it was a mystery to me how he could keep talking like that.

"Let's go," his companion urged, hastening away. Something had scared him, badly.

"You're a weak chopper!" the first Splicer yelled after him. "Yellow! Always have been!" He turned to me. "You'll be no better off with Metal Daddy, little fish. See you floating!"

The son of a bitch took off in a real hurry, following after the other one. What was it he said…Metal Daddy? What's a Metal Daddy? It was only then that I heard the deep rumbling, clanking noise of footsteps on the marble floor. It sounded exactly like the type of footstep one of those robots from a cheap science fiction movie would make. All kinds of thoughts began swimming their way across the vast ocean of my mind. Questions with no answers.

The footsteps kept getting closer, closer, until they were right by my head. The thing groaned like a wounded buffalo, obviously noticing my prone figure lying there. Definitely not human, this 'Metal Daddy', or whatever it was called. My eyes flickered open for the third time, taking in a sight I would never forget for the rest of my life.

This…thing was close to seven or eight feet tall, clad in some type of metallic diving suit with an array of glowing yellow portholes set into its helmet. A massive drill-like weapon jutted out of its right arm, reaching nearly four feet long; its steel surface covered with patches of rust.

I couldn't move away. I couldn't scream. I was paralyzed as the monster turned away from me, glancing toward…

My mind nearly blew a fuse as a girl no older than six appeared from behind Metal Daddy. The creature and the child seemed to bear no hostility toward each other, in fact, it seemed as if they were best of friends. The girl wore only a pink party dress, carrying a wicked-looking needle device in her small hand. If the Splicers had seemed out of place here, these two completely blew them out of the water.

"_Look, Mister Bubbles! It's an angel,"_ remarked the girl to the behemoth, who growled in agreement. _"I can see light coming from his belly."_

"_Wait a minute,"_ she continued, in an unnaturally mature tone for her age. _"He's still breathing. It's all right. I know he'll be an angel soon."_

She casually strolled off as my vision faded again. It must have been a few minutes later when I regained consciousness and dragged myself to my feet, shaking off the after-effects of the plasmid. The girl and the Metal Daddy were long gone; their only calling card being a series of large wet footsteps on the tiled floor.

"_You all right, boyo?"_ asked Atlas from the communication device's speakers. _"First time plasmid's a real kick from a mule, but there's nothin' like a fistful o' lightnin', now is there?"_

As he spoke, I raised my hand, checking the spot where I had injected the electrical plasmid. Blue lightning bolts leapt and played across the skin, but I felt no shock as they snapped and sizzled like living things, tracing through the confines of my veins.

On a sudden whim, I flung my hand out as if I was pitching a baseball, and a thick beam of electricity burst from my fingertips, striking a door panel on the wall and instantly destroying it from the force of the shock. The door slid open, revealing a tunnel made of glass and metal on the other side. Laughing like a madman, I threw bolt after bolt of lightning around the room, exhilarated at my own god-like power.

A minute of this experimentation passed before I hurried through the tunnel, surrounded on all sides by the ocean's crushing power. Only the layer of thick glass prevented the water from rushing in and drowning me…

I was pitched backwards as part of my airplane's tail slammed into the glass, shattering the stretch of tunnel ahead of me. Before I could react, I was swept backward by a deluge of ocean water, pouring in from outside. Soaking wet, I stumbled upright and dashed forward, desperate to find a way out of the quickly-flooding tunnel. Climbing into the plane's tail might have seemed suicidal to some, but to me, it was a way through. Gasping for breath, I pulled myself up and out of the tail, just as another rumble shook the city. Off in the distance, another pipeline had broken apart, sending glass shards and twisted scraps of metal plummeting to the sea floor.

I dashed up a flight of metal stairs, panting like a dog as I shivered from the chill of the water. The door in front of me slid open, as if welcoming me to another part of this watery hellhole.

The room was dimly lit by a red light, bearing a tiled floor similar to the Gatherer's Garden. The only thing out of place about the whole thing was the corpse of a man lying sprawled on the ground next to another vial of EVE. I picked it up gingerly, stowing it in my pocket alongside the first one.

As I rounded the corner, a stream of sparks flew from the wall as a section of pipe hit the ground with a loud clang, taking with it part of the masonry. A shadow dropped from the ceiling, spider-like and hissing ferociously.

"_SPLICER!"_ shouted Atlas.


	5. Waterproof Hell

**Chapter 5:**

**Waterproof Hell**

"Hell is empty and the devils are here."

-William Shakespeare

**Rapture, near connection tubes**

"_SPLICER!" _shouted Atlas as the man lunged forward, a heavy metal wrench similar to mine clutched in his hand. _"Give 'im the bobbo! Zap him, then whack him! The one-two punch! Remember, the one-two punch!"_

My left hand seemingly moved on its own, launching a bolt of blue lightning straight into my attacker's chest before he could swing that weapon of his. Screaming in pain, the Splicer writhed and twitched as the energy coursed across his skin, nearly electrocuting him where he stood. A quick blow to the head from my wrench, and he collapsed backward, his skull crushed in.

Breathing heavily, I turned and dashed up a flight of stairs, leaving the gruesome remains of the man behind. Blood ran down the wrench's handle onto my fingers, still slightly warm. I shuddered, repulsed by my own actions. Only fifteen minutes ago, I was on a plane over the Atlantic, and then suddenly, I was underneath it.

I had murdered two people already, killed them out of desperation. Who were they? What had their names been? Did they have families? Why were they trying to kill me? And for what reason?

_Fuck it,_ I thought. _The bastards tried to off me first. It was self-defense. Only self-defense…_

The door in front of me slid open, revealing another Splicer holding a wrench. He took one look at me and let out an animal snarl, leaping forward with a yell as he swung the heavy tool toward my face. Without hesitation, I smashed him across the throat once, pressing my hand against his chest and shooting a stream of electricity through his convulsing body.

_Okay, three people now._ I wiped the bloody wrench on my trousers as I hurried up the second flight of stairs, out into an atrium of some sort. Several tall elevator tubes stretched up to the second floor, almost identical in design to the city's protective glass tunnels that linked each of the buildings together.

"Don't do it, I'm sorry!" a man's voice pleaded from the balcony high above as I ran through the long room, his tone that of desperation. "No, please, please, don't do that…" He was abruptly cut off by the sound of a deafening explosion, followed by a plume of orange flames and a shower of burning metal as one of the elevator cars plummeted down the shaft, crashing into the floor and sending up a cloud of sparks and fire. Frantically, I pulled open the sliding doors next to the elevator and dashed inside, wincing as a wall of flame greeted me.

A wall of flame…and a fourth Splicer, alight and burning as if he were made of wood. He was screaming, a horrible scream that chilled me to the core as I backed away, ready to retaliate if he tried anything foolish. Finally, the unfortunate soul's body gave out, and he fell dead, his clothes and hair emitting a terrible stink. I rushed past, wrench in hand, looking for a way out of this nightmare.

There! On the other side of the room, an empty elevator car! Maybe it was still working…

Someone up there must have liked me, because as soon as I stepped inside, the car jerked upwards, beginning its slow climb up to the top of the atrium. Pieces of the wrecked shaft were still falling to my left, and I could only watch as the entire tube began swaying dangerously, threatening to collapse against mine.

Suddenly, the radio buzzed into life.

"_Listen, I've got a family,"_ Atlas explained, emotion in his voice. _"I need to get them out of here, but the Splicers have cut me off from them. If you can reach them in Neptune's Bounty, then maybe, just maybe…"_

"_I know you must feel like the unluckiest man in the world right now,"_ continued the Irishman, reading my thoughts down to the exact words, _"but you're the only hope I'll ever see my wife and child again. Go to Neptune's Bounty. Find my family. Please…"_

I felt sadness for the man, followed by an urge to help him get his loved ones out of the city. He was as much a human being as I was, just looking for a way to escape from this place.

Well, I'd find them for him. If I was going to die, I might as well die knowing that Saint Peter might not count those three murders against me when I arrived at the Pearly Gates. Perhaps this would even the score, so to say.

The elevator stopped on a long balcony near a doorway with a gaudy neon sign placed above it that read 'Kashmir Restaurant". A woman's soft singing emanated from inside the building, a sweet lullaby, as if she were singing to an infant.

"You're my only one…no one will be there to…"

As I rounded the corner, I saw her, stooped over an empty cradle, her shadow cast upon the wall, giving her an extremely disturbing appearance. She was a Splicer, no doubt. Her once-pretty face had been distorted over and over until it was a twisted fragment of what it had once been.

She looked up, and, for a single fleeting instant, I glimpsed a look of…humanity…in her eyes.

Could I kill her? Could I murder a helpless woman? Would I?

With a shriek of rage, she abandoned the cradle and hurled herself at my throat, her nails and teeth bared like a wild beast. Squeezing my eyes shut, I swung the wrench, feeling it connect. Over and over, the blows rained down until she at last lay still, those almost-human eyes closed forever in death.

She had been carrying a good-sized revolver, a long-barreled handgun that clattered out of her apron and onto the marble floor, stopping at my feet. I picked it up, popping open the cartridge chamber and checking how many bullets were left.

Six. A full load. She must have not used the gun, after all.

I stowed the wrench, tightening my fingers around the handle of my new weapon. It felt better to carry this than a rusty old tool, that was for certain.

"_Plasmids changed everything,"_ Atlas said through the radio. _"They destroyed our bodies…our minds…we couldn't handle it. Best friends butcherin' one another, babies strangled in cribs…the whole city went to hell."_

Hell was certainly an apt way of describing what we were trapped inside.


End file.
